1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to harnessing solar energy and, in particular, to an improved system, method, and apparatus for integrating the conversion of solar energy into a variety of usable energy forms.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the prior art, solar energy conversion systems attempt to use a single energy conversion mechanism to achieve an efficiency that would make them economically feasible. Reaching a sufficiently high rate of power conversion for broad-based economic viability is difficult if not impossible at present and has restrained the growth of the solar energy industry.
For example, one national solar power program achieved about 34% electric conversion efficiency at 660 suns concentration. Despite the high conversion compared with the commercial state of the art, this system's single conversion process only utilized a portion of the spectrum efficiently. However, that solution also created very high thermal fluxes and engineering difficulties. In addition, the extremely high efficiency of that system was limited to a laboratory bench photovoltaic (PV) prototype.
More practical models, such as lower complexity, flat panel solar energy systems are less costly per unit area, but achieve approximately half or less of the conversion rate of the concentrated systems. Furthermore, they require much more usable area to produce the required power. Overall, the lower efficiency of these expensive types of solar energy conversion modules makes them economically feasible only in remote locations requiring extensive infrastructure improvements for standard power installations. Thus, an improved solar energy conversion system would be desirable.